IDHW Director Jeppesen: 93 percent of Idahoans who got their first dose have received second dose, and 4.9 percent are within the time frame to get their second dose. #idahocovid19 Idaho is now receiving a bit more than 50,000 first doses of Pfizer and Moderna a week. This week, Idaho also received 2,500 doses of J&J.

You can listen in on the AARP Idaho call with Gov. Brad Little here: facebook.com/AARPIdaho/ #idpol #idahocovid19 Gov. Little on healthcare capacity: "It is concerning in certain areas." (I think some hospital CEOs would say this is an understatement.) Predicts because of the vaccine, Idaho can go relatively back to normal in late April, May, June-ish.

Listening to the CDH board meeting, and there are protesters in the building interrupting the director as he's trying to speak. Watch here. Dr. Jim Souza says while hospital capacity is tough, the real story is staffing shortages.

"We are definitely employing what you would call contingency standards of care.” Not crisis, but “not adhering to our usual modus operandi.” They almost went on divert earlier this week.

Good morning. I'm listening to @boisemayor McLean's briefing from local health care leaders about the current healthcare situation in the Treasure Valley. @boisemayor St. Luke's Dr. Souza: We are now well beyond normal staffing operations and approaching the limits of what we can do. He reiterates what we've been hearing for a while: We're getting closer and closer to rationing care, which is entirely preventable. #IdahoCovid19

Happy Thursday afternoon! I'm watching the Panhandle Health District Board of Health meeting (my fourth BOH meeting this week!!) Updates here. #idahocovid19 Jeff Lee from Kootenai Health: "This is going to be short, bu I can't guarantee sweet." Lee says cases are surpassing peaks from July. I can't see the slides on this stream, but Lee says they may quickly outstrip hospital's availability. #idahocovid19

Watching PHD7 (east Idaho) BOH meeting. Dr. John Landers is presenting on mental health. The numbers are going across the screen pretty quickly, but the gist of his presentation: Young people, minorities, those with fewer economic resources are more at risk for depression. The data he's using was from a nationwide survey conducted in June. I'm going to try to get the slides for his presentation.

Grim updates from St. Luke's Magic Valley, Cassia, and Minidoka hospitals. Minidoka and Cassia are holding, but have very high positivity rates (30 to 40 percent). St. Luke's Magic Valley has no more room. All are reporting critical staffing shortages. #idahocovid19 Dr. Joshua Kern of St. Lukes MV: "At no point during the pandemic so far have you heard St Luke's crying wolf.... Today is the day." Hospitals are at capacity, hospitalizations are a lagging indicator, and cases continue to rise. Next two weeks could be very bad. #idahocovid19

On this video, posted by Health Freedom Idaho, you can hear officers saying "Please holster your weapon!" starting at 53:11. At about 54:40 you can see officers leading out a man in handcuffs.

facebook.com/watch/live/?v=… I haven't seen anywhere on the video where unholstered weapons are visible, but I'm still watching. The alleged incident happened off camera, in the room where Russ Duke was during the meeting.

Listening in on this. Dr. Nemerson points out that this spike that we're experiencing isn't starting from zero -- we're already at a moderate prevalence of the disease in our community, and rising.

The current test positivity at St. Alphonsus is 12 percent. #idahocovid19

https://twitter.com/SaintAlsHealth/status/1316047939970756610

Joshua Kern, St. Lukes Magic Valley: All counties in the area are simultaneously experiencing an increase in cases right now. More than 40 COVID patients hospitalized at the beginning of the week, which was more than 1/4 of all hospitalized patients there at the time.

For those listening to Panhandle Health District, their stream went down. Their PIO said they're trying to get the county to fix it. #idpol #idahocovid19 Watching the KHQ feed, which is nice, but doesn't fulfill the open meeting obligations. I believe they are stopping the meeting right now to try to fix the Internet issues, though!

Central District Health is holding their weekly meeting. Check out these slides: The positivity rate by week, the number of cases by week, cases by age, and the positivity rate in children. #idahocovid19 TL;DR: The positivity rate is hovering around 15 percent. While people ages 18-29 continue to make up highest percentage of positive cases, people in other age groups are catching up. Teenagers and kids also have high positivity rates.

This is not great news.